MILLIONAIRE'S SHILLING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14525, 12 November 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

MILLIONAIRE'S SHILLING.

£300,000 FOR MISSIONARY SOCIETY After ten years the financial affairs of Mr. Robert Arthington, the Leeds millionaire, have been settled. The million sterling left by him, save £110,000, which has been distributed among some 20 cousins and their descendants, goes to missionary enterprise. When Mr. Arthington made his first will he apparently forgot that he had any relatives in the world, and left the whole of his fortune to missionary societies; but when he was reminded of the fact that he had kinsmen, he changed his will so that they might have one-tenth of the estate. Five of the other tenths were left to the Baptist Missionary Society, and the remaining four-tenths to the London Missionary Society. This money he required to be applied to the purpose " of spreading the knowledge of God's word among the heathen, excluding the Mahometan populations," and he wanted the money spent to give "every tribe of mankind that has them not, and which speaks a language distinct from all others, accurate and faithful copies of at least the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Luke, together with the book of the Acts of the Apostles, printed in the language of that tribe." A few months before Mr. Arthington left this enormous sum he made charitable gifts of upwards of £50,000, including £20,000 to Leeds medical charities. It is told of Robert Arthington, whose charitable bequests, missionary and otherwise, during his life and at his death must have amounted to £1,000,000, that, knowing his interest in the subject, he was induced to preside over a missionary meeting. A princely donation was expected, but Mr. Arthington, whose quaint figure, with a wizened face generally hidden under an old-fashioned hat many sizes too huge, put a shilling in the plate! And that after having made the speech of the evening. One of Mr. Arlington's conditions was that the £467,000 he left to the Baptist Missionary Society and the £373,000 to the London Missionary Society must be expended in 25 years. A start was made on spending the money as soon as the scheme was approved. It is not being applied, so far as the London Missionary Society is concerned, in relief of any of the existing enterprises of the society, but work under the legacy has been undertaken an China, India, Madagascar, South Africa, and Papua. The expenses of realising the estate and death duties, amounting to about £40.000, have reduced the total of the legacy as received by the London Missionary Society, but it still amounts to considerably over £200,000.